


Revenge

by the_authors_exploits



Series: Memories Divided by Pain [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, character death (murder?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8344651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: [rəˈvenj] noun1. the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands2. the desire to inflict retribution3. the defeat of a person by whom one was beaten in a previous encounter





	

Jason wonders sometimes, when it’s late at night and the curtains are pulled closed and the lights are turned down low and Damian hands him a microwaveable dinner, Jason wonders sometimes if it mattered; would he be better off dead?

He’s torn a son from his father; he’s dragged Damian, an innocent kid, into his mess of a life. Into his craziness, into his violence. He presses his face into the pillow and ignores Damian rolling over next to him; the bed is a good size, easily fitting a teenager and a young kid.

“I remember…” he speaks quietly, as if Batman can locate him by his voice. “I think…I remember…darkness… And I was screaming? And clawing at something…”

They’ve gone to ground, barely leaving the safe house, and if they do Damian slips out easily into the shadows; Jason doesn’t always know what he does. Sometimes Damian goes out with strips of rope and returns empty handed, sometimes he leaves empty handed and returns with a bag of greasy takeout food… Sometimes he disappears and returns with no change.

Jason closes his eyes tight against the low light, then gasps them open; he can’t breathe with them shut, smelling dirt and blood from his nail beds. It suffocates him and he lays awake, terrified.

“I…it hurt, Damian…”

He’s not really looking at anything, gaze warping in and out of focus; his breathing grows unsteady, heaving and rapid, and he’s not seeing the room he’s in. He’s seeing something else, something he doesn’t know but knows he should, hallways and Ra’s and green light and he’s choking on liquid in his lungs, struggles and struggles but hands are holding him down.

He wants to scream.

Something moves besides him, and there’s a small hand tugging the blankets up over his shoulder; he can breathe again, and he gasps. Damian comes into focus, silhouetted against the gentle moonlight, and he looks too awake to have only awoken moments ago; he pats Jason’s shoulder, and then sits back, legs crossed. He blinks at Jason.

“I have something for you,” he speaks quietly. “Tomorrow; but you need to sleep. Close your eyes.”

Jason doesn’t want to; he wants to wake up. What if he doesn’t? What if he dreams of before, of memories he can barely hold? What if he breathes dirt, what if he breathes the Pit, what if he gets hurt? It scares him… He scares himself.

“I will watch over you; I promised you, Jason. I promised no one would hurt you once, and I promise you again: you are going to be fine.”

He closes his eyes; Damian is there when he awakes in the morning, gently and patiently blinking while Jason stretches awake slowly. He’d slept well after, dropping off to sleep to the sound of Damian’s steady breathing and someone screaming on the streets below. He awakes to a car screeching, and Damian’s still steady breathing.

“You need to eat something; we need to eat something,” he corrects himself. “And then, tonight, I have something to show you.”

The day is quiet, calm; Damian listens to the radio on his throw away cell, headphones plugged in, and Jason wonders what’s so interesting.  They eat eggs and toast, no meat allowed through the doorway and Jason figures he can respect that; there’s a few slices of oranges and Jason leaves the toast for the fruit. Fruit is lighter on his stomach.

The spend the day quietly, occasionally broken by Jason asking Damian a question—“D-did you ever read to me _The Tales and Times of Hukk_?”, “I did”—and Damian is patient and kind. Jason doesn’t know why, but he is thankful.

Come night, they suit up; Damian’s uniform is modified from the Robin one, a darker cape, more deep greens and blacks, less yellow. He straps his katana to his hip and looks Jas on over; Jason’s in his usual Red Hood getup, sans the hood, and Damian nods.

“Are you ready? We’ll have to be careful; Batman has expanded his territory, and he’s enlisted the help of Wonder Woman.”

“Where are we going?”

They exit to the streets below, and Damian looks to the rooftops. “We stay to the streets, and keep our eyes to the sky; Red Robin may let us go if he catches us but everyone else will bring us back to the manor.”

Jason isn’t sure he wants to go back; he’s not sure why. It was a nice place, but cold and aloof; here, in this one room apartment, it feels safer. “Where are we going?”

Damian pauses in the shadows, then steps forward again. “I have something to show you; it should be happening tonight.”

They weave from shadow to shadow, from gutter to gutter, until they’re at an abandoned construction site. This place hasn’t been touched in a few weeks, for one reason or another, and Damian slips between some paneling on the first floor; Jason follows, Damian checking over his shoulder from time to time, and Jason is aware enough to realize Damian has mapped out a path to accommodate his height.

They climb the levels, going up and up, clambering boxes and helping each other up ledges; there’s a rumble outside, and Jason edges closer to Damian. He doesn’t like storms; they are loud, they are bright, they play jokes on his mind and make him think he sees things that aren’t there. Damian glances at him, and then pushes a flap aside.

Someone rasps out horrible laughs, and there’s a slight creaking noise; Jason freezes. He knows those laughs, despite how hoarse and choked they sound. He doesn’t want to be here.

“Come,” Damian beckons him. “He can’t hurt you.”

It’s true; the Joker is suspended over a hole in the floor, wrapped and wrapped and coiled in thick ropes, tangling and intertwining, knotted multiple times, secure. There’s a solitary rope tied tight about a rafter above, snaking down tautly to Joker’s body.

Damian marches up to the man; his green hair is splattered with red at the back, as if he was knocked unconscious, and his eye is swollen. Though if that is from the beating Jason gave him a mere week ago or something more recent is hard to say; he looks dehydrated, gaunt, but the craziness is still there, the danger, in his eyes. He grins, smacks his tongue against his teeth, and Damian gives his hanging body a shove so he’ll twirl. A display.

“I did this for you; he escaped the hospital and I brought him here.”

“H…how long?” Jason croaks out; this seems so surreal. For him? Damian brought the Joker here…for Jason?

“A few days.” Damian points to a point on the rope holding Joker to the rafter above. “Do you see?”

Jason needs to step closer to see, and Damian wants patiently as he slides a booted foot forward, until he’s behind Damian’s shoulder. “That…” He sees what Damian wants to show him; he can’t breathe. Can it be?

“It’ll happen soon.” It sounds like a promise. “Do you want to wait?”

Jason nods; he can’t find his voice. Does he have one? Has he ever had one since he came back to life? It doesn’t seem like it. But Damian acts like he can hear, and Jason drops to the floor, draws his knees to his chest, wraps his arms tight about it, buries half his face behind his knees. He can hide like this, as if these past few days of the Joker hanging here might disappear. He doesn’t want them to; if there were ever a god, please give him this one thing.

Damian drops to a cross legged position, slightly in front of Jason facing him, and pulls his katana into his lap; he holds it tight and just watches Jason.

They don’t have long to wait; Joker grumbles under his breath, wispy words of promised craze, little laughs and chuckles and sometimes he jerks and Jason sucks in a feared breath. Damian’s grip tightens on his sword, but beyond that he doesn’t move and Joker settles again with little wiggles. He’s tired, been tied here in the heat of Gotham, for days and while the craze is there the fight is not.

Not long now…

The rope finishes fraying; Jason watches the fibers split apart, hears the quiet snap as the rope breaks, hears Joker scream and scream as he falls down and down, a thud and slap… Then there’s silence; no screaming. Not in the present and not in the past, not in this place and not in Jason’s head.

Blessed silence.


End file.
